Can you be poly friendly, yet not suited to poly?

T

tryingmybest

New member
Ok so you've decided (or more accurately, figured out) that you don't need to be in a monogamous relationship to be happy.
Great.
But what about the actual application of your chosen poly path (by that I mean whether or not you have a hierarchy or a quad or whatever works for you) what if someone can cope with the idea in their head, or even think positively of it, but in practice it doesn't work

Can someone be poly friendly but not able to fulfill a poly lifestyle?
 
Of course. Can a person be okay with gay people and not be gay? Can a person be happy for other people having kids and not want any themselves? Can a person love how a jumpsuit looks on a friend and never want to wear one? Can a person think a particular profession is really cool and have no desire to do it themselves? One need not have or want something for themselves personally in order to accept that it works for other people.
 
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I am not sure I follow. Are you actually saying "I want a poly lifestyle, but I am afraid that I can't handle it"?
 
Let me rephrase to see if I get the question. You correct me if I get it wrong, ok?

I have figured out that I don't need to be in a monogamous relationship to be happy.

I can cope with the idea of an Open model in my head and think positively of it. (be it a hierarchy, or quad, or whatever it is.)

In practice... it doesn't work. Is it that I am poly friendly but cannot actually do it?
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I would say maybe not with this group of people -- whoever it is you are trying to practice poly with.

Because "success" depends on more than just you being ok with poly, or being ok practicing certain poly models.

You would only be 1 voice in the group. There's also the other people in the group. And if their behavior is all over the place, no matter how great you are in your behavior? The kite still won't fly right.


Was that what you were asking? :confused:

Galagirl
 
Hi tryingmybest,

I can think of at least two ways to understand your question:

  • Can someone be okay with a mono/poly relationship where they are the monogamous partner, but not want to be a polyamorous partner?
  • Can someone be okay with the idea of polyamory in theory, but want nothing to do with it in practice, not even a mono/poly relationship?
Basically the answer to both questions is yes, some people can be okay with poly to that extent. Not all people can, but some can, some specific individuals.

Does that help?
Kevin T.
 
tryingmybest said:
Can someone be poly friendly but not able to fulfill a poly lifestyle?
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There are many relationships in which one person is poly and the other is mono (feels no needs for an additional partner.) That can work perfectly well. Just because your partner is poly doesn't mean that you have to be, too.
 
Also, there is me:

Did poly, thought it was good, just not maybe a good fit in life right now. For one thing, my life obligations and circumstances and time, for another thing, piggybacking off the first, any issues that arose with individuals, I did not feel I could dedicate what it took to make it right...to make that kite fly, as GalaGirl would wisely say... So stopped doing the poly thing, doing mono-ish sort of thing now. Can give the kind of energy and time and mojo to make a 'ship of 2 sail quite nicely.

Not opposed to poly. Not swearing it utterly off forever. Give it 5 stars, would poly again.

Just not right now. Not for the foreseeable future. And probably not in quite the way I did it before...though that was a cool life experience I'm glad I got to do!

Since I realized that, I have had numerous others chime in and tell me that I haven't lost my "membership card" (metaphorically speaking) and I've seen a lot of people who are pretty dedicated to poly as an identity thing, choose not not practice it in their present-day life configurations.

So to answer your question, I think yes absolutely. One might have done a lot of soul searching and found some grand notion they would love to live out, but then try it and well...maybe the people involved aren't the best fit or other life considerations make it hard, maybe the timing is not right for that to work or maybe it isn't as good a thing in practice as it was in theory. That's life! Learn, grow, and evolve. Don't worry about living your life around being faithful to a word, if you're not feelin' it.
 
kdt26417 said:
I can think of at least two ways to understand your question:

  • Can someone be okay with a mono/poly relationship where they are the monogamous partner, but not want to be a polyamorous partner?
  • Can someone be okay with the idea of polyamory in theory, but want nothing to do with it in practice, not even a mono/poly relationship?
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Another would be:
  • Can someone be 100% enthusiastic about the whole idea of poly but still lack the ability to make it work in practice?
The answer to that is "of course". As with anything, it's easy to be a fan without magically gaining the ability to do it yourself. For example, I like music, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't carry a tune in a bucket.
 
And the answer also it, that you can learn most of the things you want to learn, if you keep practicing and wanting to improve. Though poly may require creative ways to "practice" :)
 
Aaaaaand, someone can be 100% enthusiastic about poly in general and be happily poly with one person, but adverse to the concept in another. Just because I feel poly-happy with one poly-happy guy doesn't mean that it's gonna work with every poly-happy guy I meet. With some people, poly just fits and with others, it feels like a terrible idea. You don't have to be poly with every person, every time just because you are in general OK with it.
 
I am in this boat

I am poly friendly, even poly-inclined, but life is too complicated right now with a disabled child, aged and dependent mother with mental issues (aged dependent father passed away few months back) and LDR with Spexy, not to mention I really, really need my space.

Would I be poly in the future? Probably, if I met someone/s right and the chaos in my life was either under control or the new person/people were able to fit right in like Spexy does. But right now I'm in a mono relationship and that too a long distance one.
 
I think it requires a certain discipline of the part of both the poly and the mono in that relationship. I'm certainly not going to intentionally hide those other relationships, with my mono partner. But she also need to accepts that there are aspects of those relationships which I won't openly share as I know it would evoke emotions of jealousy and being betrayed, which its not healthy for that relationship either.
 
47newbie said:
I think it requires a certain discipline of the part of both the poly and the mono in that relationship. I'm certainly not going to intentionally hide those other relationships, with my mono partner. But she also need to accepts that there are aspects of those relationships which I won't openly share as I know it would evoke emotions of jealousy and being betrayed, which its not healthy for that relationship either.
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If that's what your mono partner wants and has asked for, then fine. But why assume that they are incapable of processing negative feelings? Why assume that a relationship style that they have consented to (one where you are poly and they are mono) would lead to them feeling like you have betrayed them? Not every mono or mono-leaning partner wants or needs to have things kept from them in order to be happy. In fact, many would argue that it's a lack of openness and being included in what's going on in your life that can lead to alienation, jealousy and betrayal.

(Note when I mention inclusion there, I don't mean literally being included in your other relationships. I mean being included in the *knowledge* about all the good and bad aspects that that other relationship brings to your life. For me this is an essential component to feeling positive about my partners other relationships. If there are important things she is intentionally holding back from sharing with me, then I feel less secure than when there is respectful openness in place).
 
I agree that it comes back to probably the Big Bad Golden Rule of Relating: COMMUNICATION.

Because you can never just assume you know how someone is feeling about stuff, if you don't talk about it. You can't assume because you might feel a certain way, they would too, or because partners in your past have, that your present partner will, or that because they have demonstrated a certain tendency, that will always be the behavior you can expect.

You have to talk about it. And if you can't, then your relationship is problematic.

I can say that personally the more I know, the more comfortable I am. It doesn't matter the configuration of the relationship...I want to hear as much as possible. Unknowns are uncertainties, and uncertainties form insecurities, for me. I imagine bad things. Scary things. The reality is usually not bad, but I have to be reminded of that, and hearing someone talk about another partner would reinforce that what I think is happening, is what is actually happening. I'm afraid of the unknown and often second guess what I have been told.

In my case, this applies not only to metamours in poly relating, but also to the relationship and life histories of anyone I'm involved with. I want to know everything about everything. I'm also an open book. In fact, I need to be told if I'm over-sharing.

But another poster here doesn't want to hear the details about her metamours at all. Poly as can be, but that is a boundary, and violation of it causes discomfort. So that's not so much a matter of poly friendliness...that's a matter of personal preference, I think.
 
Many thanks, Spork, for bringing up something often overlooked.
Spork said:
... you can never just assume you know how someone is feeling about stuff, if you don't talk about it. ...

You have to talk about it. And if you can't, then your relationship is problematic.
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And communication skills come about ONLY from practice, & ONLY from paying close attention -- first to one's own communication style/methods & then to those of others, particularly to those with whom one most needs to communicate... but also to one's more trivial random daily communications AND to random communication all around, even films/TV programs (because they often show how our culture communicates & miscommunicates) & oddities like FOX News & the Presidential debates :eek: (because they show how"making noises with your mouth" doesn't necessarily indicate any meaningful communication.

And by "practice" I mean mistakes WILL be made. Part of "communication" is for the involved parties to be able to tolerate noise (in the Shannon sense) & to both correct what has been miscommunicated & tomodify further communication to take best advantage of an inherently faulty channel.
 
Ravenscroft said:
oddities like FOX News ... (because they show how"making noises with your mouth" doesn't necessarily indicate any meaningful communication.
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We have a thread dedicated to political discussion and that's where comments like this are appropriate - and perhaps on a blog. I'm nowhere near identifying as a Republican, but I'd like to see the random conservative bashing come to an end on this forum. I don't think it adds anything to our discussions and it just keeps us all small minded. Whether or not we agree with the conservative viewpoint, it's not OK to throw around bigoted slams, however veiled, against an enormous group of people.
 
:rolleyes:

Okay, I won't go into detail about A Certain Political Mindset being IMO thinskinned & humorless... ;)

(There's also the trick of isolating a few words & using that to invalidate an entire statement -- oh, wait, that'd be propaganda.)

Last I checked, the debates had some lefty-liberal person behind a podium as well. Someone check me on that.

I could easily have added MSNBC to the list -- as much as I adore Maddow, plenty of jaw-flapping & repetition there to sell commercial time. My bad.

And it remains: Clear, open, honest communication is pretty much a core requirement for polyamory. Attempting (or claiming) to be poly doesn't automatically bestow magickal communication powers.
 
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